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Book may have been on the front page last week but I assure you very very few people in the US have insulation above and below their foundations or incredibly a

Book may have been on the front page last week but I assure you very very few people in the US have insulation above and below their foundations or incredibly air tight houses.

toomuchtodo 4y ago
Gotta start somewhere. Older houses were built when energy was cheap and plentiful, and we're transitioning to a future where that isn't as clear.
- recuter 4y ago
  You can pay the greenie winnie tax and go full passive house and be completely off grid sitting pretty in an airtight optimally efficient home: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhbLjEKKLVM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhbLjEKKLVM It would also triple the construction cost of the house. Reasons. But hey, $0 energy bill. Most builders don't do any of that stuff, like at all. Just the bare minimum required. They aren't incentivized. Most consumers would - and do - opt for single pane windows over dual, and dual over triple, 'etc. Even when the windows would "pay for themselves" over their lifetime.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - toast0 4y ago
    The bare minimum is a lot more than it used to be. My parents' house was built with zero attic insulation, and I believe no wall insulation either. Just framed, drywalled insided and stucco outside. I can't imagine there's any fire blocks between studs either.
    - notch656c 4y ago
      Upping the codes to require new construction to have those things, while not razing your parents' house, shows it's all about the pyramid scheme and not about actual safety. If it were about actual safety and such things are considered unsafe then unsafe houses like your parents home should be bulldozed for the good of the people.
      - frankus 4y ago
        I think it shows that there's at least a basic cost-benefit analysis taking place, where things that we've learned provide a safety benefit that can be added at minimal cost during construction are required, but bulldozing a house because it will burn down 15 minutes faster doesn't pencil out.
        notch656c 4y ago
        And yet if I built a new house against code they would still make me go back and fix it, even though I could make the exact argument you made about the old house not penciling out to go back and make them fix it.
        toast0 4y ago
        In theory, building inspections at each stage of construction should find omissions and other non conformance while it's economic to fix them. I do acknowledge that building inspections have a lot of issues, one of which is different inspector, different rules, and a later stage inspector may have you redo something the earlier stage inspector said was fine (sometimes, even with the same inspector!), but the idea is there. I've heard that locally, a lot of inspections are done by video conference now, and contractors find that goes a lot faster and more direct. Not sure if that'll stay post-covid. It's also difficult to know what's on the inside of built houses (which is why inspection is supposed to happy during construction, not after). Commercial buildings often have both plans and as-built drawings; but residential buildings don't, and when you get on-site and the plan doesn't match the house, you really don't know what's in the walls. Some sort of government driven new code compliance inspection for existing housing stock seems really expensive. Even public use buildings take a long time to get code compliance updates, such as retrofits on unreinforced masonry buildings in many places, and there's both more risk and more enforcement power for public use buildings.
        gamblor956 4y ago
        No, not even remotely the same. The old house was up-to-code, and considered safe for habitation, when it was built. Your new house was not. Very importantly, if you renovate an old house, regulations may require you to update the house to modern building code standards for plumbing, electricity, etc.
belval 4y ago
No, but it's safe to say that has time goes by, more and more people are building houses that way. Which would show up in time to build metrics. I don't know the build code in the US, but in Canada (Quebec) most new constructions are air tight because of government subsidies. I'd be surprised if Maine, Vermont, New York and the other North-Eastern states don't have something similar.
bcrosby95 4y ago
I rather think our house is pretty optimal for this given where we live. Slab on grade in socal, where AC is more of a concern than heating.
- bee_rider 4y ago
  In Southern California I guess you don’t need heat at all, right? Apparently it only gets down to 42F over there so the pipes won’t even get hurt, let alone the people, who have built in thermoregulation.
  - bcrosby95 4y ago
    We definitely have heat, and this year it's been especially cold. For the last 8 years I've lived here, most winters we only use it a single month, and even then it's rare. This winter has been the exception.

Book may have been on the front page last week but I assure you very very few people in the US have insulation above and below their foundations or incredibly air tight houses.

toomuchtodo 4y ago

Gotta start somewhere. Older houses were built when energy was cheap and plentiful, and we're transitioning to a future where that isn't as clear.

recuter 4y ago
You can pay the greenie winnie tax and go full passive house and be completely off grid sitting pretty in an airtight optimally efficient home: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhbLjEKKLVM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhbLjEKKLVM It would also triple the construction cost of the house. Reasons. But hey, $0 energy bill. Most builders don't do any of that stuff, like at all. Just the bare minimum required. They aren't incentivized. Most consumers would - and do - opt for single pane windows over dual, and dual over triple, 'etc. Even when the windows would "pay for themselves" over their lifetime.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- toast0 4y ago
  The bare minimum is a lot more than it used to be. My parents' house was built with zero attic insulation, and I believe no wall insulation either. Just framed, drywalled insided and stucco outside. I can't imagine there's any fire blocks between studs either.
  - notch656c 4y ago
    Upping the codes to require new construction to have those things, while not razing your parents' house, shows it's all about the pyramid scheme and not about actual safety. If it were about actual safety and such things are considered unsafe then unsafe houses like your parents home should be bulldozed for the good of the people.
    - frankus 4y ago
      I think it shows that there's at least a basic cost-benefit analysis taking place, where things that we've learned provide a safety benefit that can be added at minimal cost during construction are required, but bulldozing a house because it will burn down 15 minutes faster doesn't pencil out.
      - notch656c 4y ago
        And yet if I built a new house against code they would still make me go back and fix it, even though I could make the exact argument you made about the old house not penciling out to go back and make them fix it.
        toast0 4y ago
        In theory, building inspections at each stage of construction should find omissions and other non conformance while it's economic to fix them. I do acknowledge that building inspections have a lot of issues, one of which is different inspector, different rules, and a later stage inspector may have you redo something the earlier stage inspector said was fine (sometimes, even with the same inspector!), but the idea is there. I've heard that locally, a lot of inspections are done by video conference now, and contractors find that goes a lot faster and more direct. Not sure if that'll stay post-covid. It's also difficult to know what's on the inside of built houses (which is why inspection is supposed to happy during construction, not after). Commercial buildings often have both plans and as-built drawings; but residential buildings don't, and when you get on-site and the plan doesn't match the house, you really don't know what's in the walls. Some sort of government driven new code compliance inspection for existing housing stock seems really expensive. Even public use buildings take a long time to get code compliance updates, such as retrofits on unreinforced masonry buildings in many places, and there's both more risk and more enforcement power for public use buildings.
        gamblor956 4y ago
        No, not even remotely the same. The old house was up-to-code, and considered safe for habitation, when it was built. Your new house was not. Very importantly, if you renovate an old house, regulations may require you to update the house to modern building code standards for plumbing, electricity, etc.

belval 4y ago

No, but it's safe to say that has time goes by, more and more people are building houses that way. Which would show up in time to build metrics. I don't know the build code in the US, but in Canada (Quebec) most new constructions are air tight because of government subsidies. I'd be surprised if Maine, Vermont, New York and the other North-Eastern states don't have something similar.

bcrosby95 4y ago

I rather think our house is pretty optimal for this given where we live. Slab on grade in socal, where AC is more of a concern than heating.

bee_rider 4y ago
In Southern California I guess you don’t need heat at all, right? Apparently it only gets down to 42F over there so the pipes won’t even get hurt, let alone the people, who have built in thermoregulation.
- bcrosby95 4y ago
  We definitely have heat, and this year it's been especially cold. For the last 8 years I've lived here, most winters we only use it a single month, and even then it's rare. This winter has been the exception.